Light-weight cellular materials can have advantageous properties for certain applications. One example of a category of light-weight materials is aerogels. Aerogels can have low densities, but can be fragile. Devices made from atomic layer deposition (ALD) films can be more flexible and have low mass. However, ALD films can be subject to warping and damage caused by large stress gradients or other forces that can exist in ultrathin films during fabrication.
At the macro scale, many types of periodic cellular plates can be used. For example, certain plates having honeycomb lattices and sandwich structures, which can include two face sheets attached to a periodic core, have been used in construction, aerospace, scientific instrumentation (e.g., optical tables), and other industries that require lightweight rigid plates. For example, paper-based corrugated cardboard structures can be an example of a macroscopic composite that includes two face sheets attached to a corrugated core. These lattice and/or sandwich structures can possess a high bending stiffness and low areal density (e.g., mass per unit area). However, macro-scale lattices and/or sandwich plates can fail to sustain sharp bending deformations without sustaining permanent damage. For example, honeycomb sandwich composites can fracture during sharp bending while paper-based corrugated cardboard structures can buckle irreversibly along the fold line and can become permanently weaker after sharp bending than before they were bent. Accordingly, there is a need for macro-scale plates that can sustain large bending deformations without permanent damage.